Construction Details:

Patterning--for the parts that conformed mostly to my body (greaves, bracers, abdominal armor and inner breastplate), I got cheap t-shirts and had a friend duct tape me into them. Cut it off and added darts to flatten it so it could be adapted for Wonderflex. For those pieces that were not as closely body-conforming (especially the pauldrons), I made mock-ups of posterboard until I was happy with them.
The armor is itself made of Wonderflex with upholstery vinyl on top. The scale maille scales are made of wonderflex painted with gold leafing paint and riveted to vinyl sleeves. The bright points are a superlight clay, sculpted, leafed, and coated with mod podge. The leggings are actually just a basic tan, but I used scrap vinyl to stamp vague patterns on them in a darker brown and in white. The gloves are actually leather I hand stitched based on a set of gardening gloves I have. The knuckles are still more leafed Worbla.
The daggers are the Nicked Blade and Knightslayer. The blades are made of transpa-art coated with reflective window tinting film to allow them to look very metallic but still glow when lit from within. I made forms out of balso wood to shape the blades over. I etched the patterns for the nicked blade into the inside surface. I learned to solder so I could custom fit EL wire and LEDs into the blades. The handle of the Nicked Blade is a polycarbonate tube mated to the blade by means of the top of an old prescription bottle. Then the whole hilt was wrapped with leather. The hilt for Knightslayer was made by making a wooden form (out of balsa wood), and forming wonderflex over it. It was then covered in a scrap of suede.

Personal Thoughts:

I cannot believe I actually managed to scrape this thing together. I decided to do the Inquisitor in December, and settled on an armor style in January. I chose the Armor of the Dragon pretty much because of the fantastic pauldrons. Three layers woven with leather straps? Oh, yeah!
The day of the shoot, I had several small costume malfunctions--popped rivets (two of which were functional, so for such a tiny issue, they had big repercussions), snapped off points on the brightwork, a scale lost from the sleeves... Super glue and zip ties saved the heck out of it. And it came out so well! I thought I was going to have a heat stroke, since it's not breathable in the least, but plenty of breaks for hydration kept me okay, if not precisely comfortable. I love this armor, and I love the daggers!

Sorry, you must be a registered user of and logged in to view and add comments. Either log in or register now!